Provided herein are arrays of optical components supported by a deformable substrate having a variable and user-controlled curvature. The devices and methods of the invention have a number of useful applications, including in the field of optical detectors, imagers and optical emitters. Methods for varying the curvature of an array of optical components and for making the disclosed devices are also provided.
Much interest is devoted to the field of stretchable and foldable electronics. For example, good stretchability and foldability of various electronic and opto-electronic devices are disclosed in U.S. Pub. Nos. 2008/0157235, 2010/0002402 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,972,875, including eye-type imagers that incorporate focal plane arrays on hemispherical substrates. Foldable integrated circuit designs are accessed by supporting specially configured electronic materials on thin elastomeric substrates, including by interconnection of rigid device islands by interconnects that accommodate strains and stresses by straightening of the interconnects. In this manner, strain-sensitive materials can be isolated from stretch and/or bending-induced strains.
Although effort has been devoted to ensuring electronic circuits that can stretch and bend, a challenge remains as to providing a reliable, fast and consistent means for precisely varying and controlling the curvature of an electronic circuit in a dynamic manner. Certain systems involve direct printing of components onto curved surfaces (Xu et al. Org. Electron 9:1122-1127 (2008)) or geometric transformation of initially planar configurations into desired shapes (Ko et al. Nature 454:748-753 (2008); Jung et al. Appl Phys Lett 96:021110-1-021110-3 (2010); Ko et al. Small 5:2703-2709 (2009); Shin et al. Small 6:851-856 (2010)). Those systems, however, generally relate to rigid, concave device substrates whose curvature cannot be dynamically varied. In other words, the device is locked into one substrate shape. The lack of a reliable system to vary substrate curvature is particularly relevant for hemispherical imagers, where a change in the zoom by changing lens curvature, affects focal surface, or the curvature of a surface for which the image will be in focus. Provided herein, therefore, are methods and devices for dynamically varying the curvature of an array of optical components, including of a photodetector array that may be incorporated into an imaging system to provide focus over a range of lens curvatures.